You guys have just gone through a General Election. It dragged on for almost six weeks and lots of money was expended to produce a result every single pollster got wrong. Ha, amateurs.
Here in America we do not arse around. It’s what we call ‘American Exceptionalism.’ That’s why the election cycle for the 2016 Presidency started at the end of 2014 and will keep going until you can actually cast your vote in November 2016. Now that’s what you call bloody exceptionalism!
And when it comes to money, for years we’ve spent shitloads to elect the finest politicians money can buy, and since the geriatrics on the Supreme Court, including Clarence Thomas, who hasn’t spoken a single word in the nine years since he was appointed, decided that giant corporations were actually people and could donate millions ‘till their eyes bleed, the flood gates have truly opened.
Never forget that virtually all public offices in the US are electable: senators, congressmen, judges, sheriffs, even dog catchers need to catch your attention and persuade you to vote for them. This requires lots and lots of TV ads… really, really fucking terrible TV ads, which in turn requires lots and lots of money to run them. It is now estimated that on the day someone is elected to the US Senate for a six year term, he/she will have to start raising $200,000 a month for every one of those following seventy two months.
Which raises the question… how much time do they spend doing what they were elected to do compared to how much time they spend fund raising to get re-elected? Obviously all that money is a bonanza for the media, but not so much for ad agencies. Most of the ‘creative’ is produced by political hacks, otherwise known as consultants. These are specialists in producing ugly spots insisting that the person opposing their candidate is a communist, fascist, Muslim, necrophiliac, child rapist who will, horror of horrors… Take your assault weapons away.
Anyway, candidates for political office are notoriously bad at paying their bills, particularly if they lose. Carly Fiorina (below), who almost bankrupted HP and is now running for the GOP Presidential nomination took four years to pay off the $400,000 she owed staff members the last time she ran for office. This in spite of the fact she has a personal stash in excess of $100 million! I guess that’s how the rich stay rich.
My one personal example of working for a politico was back in my Mad Man days when I worked on New York Mayor, John Lindsay’s re-election campaign in 1969. In his first term, he fucked up royally, garbage strikes, bridge collapses, giant snow storms… In NYC, the mayor gets blamed for everything. He was even caught on an open mike describing some hecklers as fat Jewish broads! We decided the only strategy was to put him on camera and have him admit he had fucked up.
But he had been tempered in the flames and learned his lesson. He begged for another chance. And guess what? The electorate did just that and gave him a second term… In which he proceeded to fuck up even worse! Yes, you can’t make this shit up!
So, back to the present day. We have seventeen solid months of campaigning to look forward to. The GOP will continue to position itself way to the right of Genghis Kahn, the Democrats just slightly to the left of Genghis Kahn. We will be faced with a choice of either a Bush or a Clinton (with Chelsea in the wings for 2024)
Most of the electorate won’t turn out. Which will be no surprise when you consider they will have been bombarded with so much bad advertising that they will simply become numb to it. Social media will become anti-social media. If this doesn’t kill off Facebook, Twitter, InstaWank and all the other “conversation” channels out there, then most of the users will became zombies, which most of them already are.
So, it’s all a giant wank. You’d be much better off voting for me… Better yet, just send me the money… I promise never to fuck up again. ‘Til the next time!